TOP 09 in danger of being sidelined at Prague City Hall

Following the recent municipal elections, it appeared that the winners in
the capital, TOP 09 (with its candidate for mayor Zdeněk Tůma) would
head
City Hall. But a little over a week later, that possibility seems fairly
remote. Following negotiations, the other main parties, the Civic
Democrats
together with the Social Democrats, appear ready to bypass the winner
entirely, allowing things to remain ‘business as usual’.

“I think this was more or less to be expected from the very beginning. I
think there was a concerted effort to give the impression that there would
be changes at Prague city hall, both on the part of the Civic and Social
Democrats, and that was in fact also strongly promoted by the media. But I
think that all along they were planning on forming on a grand coalition
between both parties.

“A similar such arrangement had already been in place for a number of
years. In that respect this is really nothing new. What was new was that
there was a new party – TOP 09 – that promised and thought that it
could end this arrangement. Voters supported it massively with more than
30
percent of the vote but now we are finding out that this probably won’t
come to pass and that voters will be tricked, with things remaining as
they
are.”

How do you think voters will react?

Prague City Hall
“Well, the two parties seem to be dragging things out a bit for the sake
of appearances: whenever you are doing something unpopular it’s better
to
prolong the time period. And because of that they will somewhat diminish
the backlash by voters, although I think that undoubtedly voters will feel
cheated. The other thing to remember, though, is that the next elections
are a number of years away and that many things can happen between now and
then. I suspect that the ruling parties think they will have a number of
years to work it out.”

What are some of the concrete advantages for the Civic and Social
Democrats to form a coalition? As you mentioned, it’s an arrangement
that
has been working for some time…

“First of all, you have very concrete business relationships that are in
place, with specific politicians in both parties who have basically been
running the city for several years. Those relationships are developers,
they are operators of city-owned facilities and providers and members at
utility companies because of the seats on the boards on some of these
companies. So you have very specific relationships they want to maintain.

Erik Best
“If you bring in a new party it means disrupting some of those
relationships and bringing in people who have not been part of that system
so far. That’s one of the reasons I think that we are unlikely to see
TOP
09 as the ruling party – because of all the business relationships
involved.”

TOP 09 ran a fairly effective campaign in the run-up to the election:
do
you think they would be strong as an opposition party at city hall?

“I don’t think so. I think they would be a weak opposition party.
Their voice would be very, very small and would therefore depend on the
eloquence of their leaders. And their leaders in Prague are not eloquent
at
all. Not many journalists are going to want to talk to an opposition
leader
who isn’t able to stir up the masses and bring attention to the causes.
I’m afraid if it works out that we do see a grand coalition between the
other two parties, TOP 09 will sort of shrivel up in Prague, something
that
will impact its performance as well on the national level.”